Syed Ahmad, 45, has admitted murdering his wife Anam Rafay at their home in Manchester on the morning of January 27 this year. He initially denied murder, claiming he did not intend to kill her and was suffering from 'abnormal mental functioning', but pleaded guilty after two weeks of trial at Manchester Crown Court.
The Attack
Mrs Rafay suffered 40 stab wounds to her neck, body, arms and legs and died as a result of a cardiac arrest, a post mortem revealed. On the morning of the attack, she was filling a water bottle in the kitchen when Ahmad came up behind her armed with a kitchen knife and repeatedly stabbed her, causing her to fall to the floor. She managed to get up and went next door seeking help, but the defendant chased her, caught up, and started stabbing her again. Neighbours watched him stabbing her on the ground before he was seen 'walking back to the house leaving her dead or dying'. Prosecutor Bill Baker KC said that as Ahmad walked back to the house, he was seen to 'smile or smirk'. He then sent a message to the family WhatsApp group and to Mrs Rafay's father: 'I have killed my wife.'
Controlling Behaviour
The court heard that Ahmad and Mrs Rafay were married by way of arranged marriage in Pakistan in 2005, when she was 16 and he was 25. She previously lived in Pakistan with her family, and Ahmad lived in the UK after relocating as a child. 'The defendant's family promised her family that she would be treated as an actual daughter, not daughter in law. They didn't do so,' Mr Baker said. 'They made her do all the housework and she wasn't allowed to eat until they had finished eating.' Ahmad was said to be 'abusive, controlling and violent throughout their marriage'. A former colleague, Gemma Mulvaney, described his 'strange behaviour', saying he used to follow his wife to work in a car while she walked, driving slowly next to her and waiting until she entered the building. Another colleague, Kirsty Tomlin, said Mrs Rafay had described Ahmad as 'horrible' and 'evil'. 'She said he used to beat her up, he never helped her in the house. He just wasn't nice to her,' Ms Tomlin said. 'She said she wasn't happy in her marriage. She said she couldn't leave him because he would kill her.'
Divorce and TikTok
In June last year, Mrs Rafay began speaking to a man she had met on TikTok. They became friendly, went on city trips, and she 'fell in love with him and wanted to marry him'. In September she contacted a mufti, a divorce mediator, in Longsight to ask about obtaining a divorce application. The following October she served the application upon Ahmad, who asked for mediation. She agreed to give him 'one more chance to change', but he never did. The night before the attack, Mrs Rafay told Ahmad she wanted a divorce.
Guilty Plea
In arrest footage shown to the court, Ahmad said: 'I'm truly sorry, I'm truly sorry, I'm sorry.' Later he was heard to say: 'Self defence, self defence, she attacked me.' While giving evidence, his barrister Mark Ford KC asked him: 'Do you accept you killed your wife?' 'I was in a psychotic episode,' Ahmad said. He said he 'heard visuals and sounds' of a male voice telling him his wife would 'smash his head in'. When asked if he had any memory of stabbing his wife, he replied: 'No. Just flashbacks. Someone stabbed my wife, I think it was me.' Ahmad, of Lulworth Gardens, Wythenshawe, Manchester, denied murder and an alternate offence of manslaughter. After concluding evidence on Tuesday, July 28, he pleaded guilty to murder, and jurors were asked to formally record a guilty verdict. He will be sentenced on Friday, July 31.
